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Mechanical
Previously called Chassis, the Mechanical Subteam of Cornell ChemE Car works on all things mechanical that comes with the ChemE Car competition. The team works with power teams to design and build the housing for the power source and chassis for the various equipments and loads. In addition, the team develops a drivetrain and motor-gear system to convert the power source into mechanical energy. Simultaneously, members are actively participating in research and development regarding new chassis materials, motors, wheels etc.' Background Main article: History of the Mechanical Subteam Before there was a mechanical sub-team, the ChemE Car power teams would modify RC vehicles to accommodate their power sources. By ripping off the top of a cheap toy car they could easily adjoin their power source to the vehicle and immediately begin testing. Although this solution seemed very convenient and time efficient, modifying these vehicles to house their power source was very inconsistent. Adjusting the speed of the vehicle was impossible from a mechanical perspective and lateral drift issues were ever-present. Custom vehicles were also built in the past; however, these vehicles typically had adhesive means of adjoining wheels and other important drivetrain components. All of these structural and drivetrain issues severely increased the amount of time that it would take to calibrate the vehicles because minor adjustments would consistently be needed. This resulted in a great amount of strain on the team as a whole because power teams couldn’t properly calibrate their car until it was in operating condition. Over the past six semesters, the mechanical sub-team has grown from one, to two, to five, and ultimately to eight members. During the past four semesters we have been able to make great strides to improve the consistency of the vehicle. Spring 2013 Our sub-team was able to accomplish everything we intended to by regionals: building two robust vehicles that travelled a consistent speed and were devoid of lateral drift. Next semester the battery and Fuel Cell liaisons will have to work with their respective power teams in order to calibrate the vehicles on competition like surfaces. In addition to this important responsibility, the pressure liaison will have to define the problem with the delivery mechanism then develop and implement a solution to solve this problem. After solving this issue, they will have to develop a structure and drivetrain for the vehicle. Finally, the TEG liaison will have to create the structure and drivetrain for that car. In addition to building these vehicles, the mechanical sub-team will need to perform dynamics calculations to determine how fast the vehicle will travel on any surface. Calculations such as these are pretty difficult because it is hard to find motors with extensive specifications, to determine the stickiness between a tire without specifications and a random surface, and to figure out what model is appropriate to apply because our classes do not discuss vehicles such as this one. I think that it would be greatly helpful to talk to Professor Andy Ruina and or John Callister regarding our specialty case and to see if they could help the team. Fall 2013 The team is working fully with all five power teams to meet their individual demands. We work with them weekly to gauge their progress and often make suggestions on future steps or improvements. The current goal is to produce functional cars for power teams with potential power source for the car off next semester, which will be towards Regionals 2014. As I’m writing this, Fuel Cell and Battery are planning to keep their car, and Pressure is nearing a potential power source. Bio and TEG are making great progress, but it’s improbable they will have a working power source for the car-off. On our personal end, all of our research projects have entered the production stage, where we will build prototypes or run tutorials based on our findings. More about the individual project is listed in the previous section. Spring 2014 The well-established power teams (Battery and Fuel Cell) will be receiving new chassis and maybe new drivetrain system. We are very much intertwined with Pressure to get them their first car. The progress this semester was great, but we hope to get a car for them next semester. Bio and TEG are still on the research stage, but they are coming up quickly. Bio has their engine and their materials, and will most likely get a chassis by next year. Same goes for TEG; they have good research and background, so building a chassis should be possible in the coming year. In our R&D department, we have made a miniature of our prototype car, so we can have it done in real scale by next semester. The only problem we face with that is the increased use to acrylic. However, this was inevitable, and most probably the cheapest and fastest option available. We will carry on making other tutorials beside the CAD one to expand everyone’s knowledge. It will be created under demand, so as to serve the ChemE car members directly. Along with the next generation chassis, we should also be implementing a new drivetrain and wheels. The drivetrain will most likely be created manually, so we will have a lot more troubleshooting. However, this will give us more control over the speed and drift of the cars. Implementing new wheels shouldn’t be too difficult as solutions to fit wheels with different drivetrains are achieved relatively easily. Our guide for the new laser cutter is almost complete, so once that’s done, we should hopefully have two working sources of laser cutting. Fall 2014 Even though we had a rough start, we’ve reached equilibrium. We’ll be finishing the cars we’ve built, and getting ready for Regionals next semester. On a more specific basis, we will work with Battery, Fuel Cell and Pressure directly to give them working cars for car-off if necessary, then preparing the winners for Regionals. For Bio and TEG, we will work around them to help with any R&D. We will also be working with Potions and Electronics to develop a new Potions box. Lastly, we will be delving more into R&D next semester. This year was our implementation of the past R&D, thus we didn’t do much of actual R&D (more on this in the Research and Development section). Alumni *Saajan Chopra (Fall 2011 - Spring 2014) '15 *Stephanie Altrui (2011 - Fall 2012) '13 *Paul Travisino (2011 - Spring 2013) '13 *Adam Kohl (2011 - Spring 2013) '13 *Betsy Zadeh (2011 - 2012) *Peter Baggaley (Spring 2013) '15 *Yechun Fu (Fall 2012 - Spring 2014) '15 *Christian Welling (Fall 2014) '17 Category:Subteams Category:Mechanical